


Hourglass

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dysfunctional Dersites, Gen, Jack Stabbing Things Up, Weird Existential Shit, Weird Time Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-18
Updated: 2011-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in time by Aradia, Jack has a moment to reflect on his life history and the nature of his existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hourglass

**1: Hour of the Ram**

In the crypt at the core of Derse's moon Jack hangs suspended. Time stops dead as a dropped glass, and his sword is caught mid-swing by the spreading net of fractures. He neither moves nor breathes. All he can do is remember.

 **2: Hour of the Fish**

The fountain glitters and the child moves his arm over the water and the shadow moves beneath the surface. Many tiny fish swim in the springs of Derse and none more beautiful than these. He will be a child for only a few weeks, his small body pulled from the hourglass cloning apparatus only that morning. All he knows is the love of his land and the distant blue light in the sky.

 **3: Hour of the Water-Carrier**

In a way the final prototyping feels like a purification. The raucous voices of cat, bird and clown are silenced by the rush of green fire that tears through him. For a moment he forgets everything. And then he knows exactly where he and exactly what is to be done.

When he is done with the boy and the birdsprite he is barely even out of breath, though spattered with dust and gouts of dark human blood, and he flies down to the oily sea below to admire his reflection. His new jaws are unwieldy but filled with crooked fangs, his hands bear short and practical claws, and his new sunglasses look fine. As an afterthought, he sets the sea ablaze, and takes off for worlds unknown.

 **4: Hour of the Goatfish**

The ring hits the ground with a small metallic clink. Her finger lies on the flagstones elsewhere. Besides a few splashes of ichor on the floor, it is all that is left of her, a ragged severed thing that twitches slightly like an animate comma.

It's her own fault. She took such joy in humiliating him. Perhaps he could have tolerated being mocked for his stature, his temper, his lack of finesse, if it hadn't all been coupled with a certain amusement at his powerlessness. She would dandle small rewards and kindnesses out of his reach - a reprieve from filling out parking violations, a bag of rare crunchy beetles - and laugh like a child teasing a cat when he leaped for them.

He dons the ring, feeling the metal expand and contract to fit his finger. It still feels warm, and he has a few seconds to wonder whether this is the power of the ring or the lingering heat of the Queen's body. Then the prototyping hits him.

It feels perfectly natural. There is pain as the sword grows out from his ribcage, but it is a good pain, like stretching after a long time in confinement. He loses an arm but gains two tentacles, sprouting from his sides like strong young shoots. The metamorphosis takes only a few seconds. When it is done, he imagines he can feel the power coursing in his veins. Flight, grace, mad and undirected malice.

 **5: Hour of the Archer**

The music is coming from somewhere within the palace. A cool, clear melody, notes rippling into place with an insolent ease that suggests they do so because they feel like it, not because anyone has ordered them too.

It's no surprise to him to see the Draconian Dignitary sitting at the piano, when he finds it.

"Dee," he says, "Didn't know you played."

"Oh, you didn't, boss?" says Dee, his face impassively innocent.

"Look here," says Jack, grabbing him by the collar and hissing in his ear. To his disgust the man doesn't even flinch. "I know yer game. Piano's my instrument. You stay the hell away."

"As you wish, boss," says the Dignitary, with what might be a small smile.

"You're lucky I don't gut you for this," Jack snarls, "But you may as well finish the song."

 **6: Hour of the Spider**

One thing that nobody remembers is that Jack, like the universe, is a thing of numbers. It is so much easier to think of the Dignitary, with all his quiet efficiency and passionless violence, as more of a man of mathematics, but then one forgets that the numbers can also encode pain, loneliness, frustration, rage.

Jack himself often tries to forget this. He knows deep within his soul that he is one term in an interminable series; one iteration of the same grinding and remorselesse pattern. Like death, it's not something that Dersites talk about. They are after all a warrior culture first and foremost. It does the troops no good if they know that there is nothing after death, but it's almost worse for them to know that they are nothing but nameless, faceless chunks of game code. So Dersite mythology paints a picture of a beautiful afterlife, full of rich food and lithe carapaced maidens, and makes no mention of the numbers that govern all their lives.

You may choose chaos, you may choose irrationality, you may choose to tear down the heavens and rend the cities with fire, but every movement in space and time is a gentle tug on the warp and weft of the web, and there is no escaping it.

 **7: Hour of the Scales**

He sees a worthy opponent in the young man. A sinewy fellow, his pale skin dusted with freckles, who wields a cheap, showy sword and somehow makes it formidable. They will duel to the death like heroes of old, Jack thinks, before snorting with derision. There are no heroes of old. The past is a sequence of digits in his head. Junk data, not even a necessary part of the game.What does this lanky human bastard care if Jack has his regrets? What do any of the humans care? He was created as a resource. A villain or an ally according to their needs.

There's one thing Jack's certain of, and that's that he isn't going to be no fucking ally.

 **8: Hour of the Maiden**

 _odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?  
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior._

A smile glimmers across her face like a waning moon. She beckons, a sinuous motion with one slim finger, and her tentacles waft like weed in water. Every prototyping hurts him because it changes her.

He hates her more with every absurd alteration. One eye is gone as if it never were, the socket empty and a delicate scar like a penstroke marking the loss that is no loss at all. Dark wings flare from her shoulders, and her body is marred by the sword which she bears as a mark of pride. As though she has ever really suffered for her people.

He bears the weight of those changes now and feels closer to her.

 **9: Hour of the Lion**

The collar of his old uniform _itches_. He has grown use to its shabby garishness now - now that he has wings and a sword through his chest, nobody is going to question a bit of tinsel around his neck, much less laugh at him. But it fucking itches, and with only one hand extant he cannot get the fucking thing off. He snarls in fury, clenching his fist so tight he hears the joints crackle.

"Boss?" says the Courtyard Droll, "Is everything okay?"

"Fucking _perfect_ ," Jack growls.

"Oh, good," says the Droll, "It's just that you looked a teeny bit upset."

"It's this goddamn collar," says Jack, tugging at it ineffectually.

"It does look too tight. Let me get that, boss," says the Droll, hopping up on a chair and carefully undoing a button or two. In any other circumstances, Jack would be mortified. The Sovereign Slayer, unable to dress himself? He would never live it down. But the Droll, despite the fact that Jack thinks he's a half-wit, is the soul of discretion. And besides, the little man looks so ludicrous in his enormous hat that it's impossible to imagine him laughing at you.

"Better?" says the Droll, as Jack stretches his neck experimentally, "I can take the whole thing off, if you want."

"No," says Jack, "Leave it. It's important."

 **10: Hour of the Crab**

He isn't sure whether the golden gleam of Prospit hurts his eyes, or whether he simply detests the place so much it stings. This is another Prospit, of course, another universe intended solely to remind him of his own insignificance. There's a kid asleep on the floor, one of those small grey-skinned things, so similar to Jack's adversaries that he feels an instant disgust for the creature. He readies his sword, but before he can make his move, the boy opens his eyes and stares.

"Jack," he says. He doesn't smile, but to Jack's surprise, there is something approaching affection in his eyes, almost instantly replaced by paralysing horror, as though the shadow of wings is passing across his face.

Jack decides to kill this one slowly.

 **11: Hour of the Twins**

11001111

The game intends to make him a stage-play villain, but he could never outdo the game in cruelty. Not enough to condemn worlds to death, not enough to enslave civilisations and drive them into a pointless war over an abstraction neither of them care about, it has to blame Jack for all of this. Jack and the Queen, Skaia's own scapegoats. He knows now what is was that warped and twisted her.

1001100100

Still, perhaps there is a kind of nobility in fiercely maintaining the illusion of free will. No matter that the game has the result of every choice mapped out already, infinitely branching like the most monstrous of trees. He will choose and his choice will matter.

10000000001

 **12: Hour of the Bull**

The Maid of Time's powers will not hold him forever. He waits.


End file.
